Tips  for full time RV living

99 Tips After 7+ Years of Full-Time RV Living

June 1, 2022 by Brianna.

RV living is an adventure in itself! As you can imagine, living in a house with more than one bedroom, a basement, and maybe even more than one bathroom, and living in a space of a few hundred square feet has its challenges.

Featured Product: Berkey Water Filter

We have been using our Berkey water filter for the past 8 years to get safe, fresh water as we travel throughout North America. We highly recommend getting one of these while RVing and traveling!

Can you live in an RV full time?

Of course! We have been doing this since May 2014 with our 4 kids. The community of full-time RVers is growing like crazy. People are looking for freedom and love the idea of ​​traveling the country!

Which RV is best for full-time living?

The answer really depends on how you want to travel in your RV. If you plan to stay for a long time, grow as much as you can. If you like to travel a lot and visit national and state parks, something smaller makes more sense.

How much does it cost to live in an RV full-time?

It will depend on how you want to travel. If your goal is to get out and see and do more, it will cost more than if your goal is to stay in one place and save money. For us we spend between $5,000 – $10,000 per month.

We know others who do it for less. Below we break it down in more detail and reference a few blog posts we have on this exact topic.

Time to jump in! Here’s 6+ years of information we’ve gathered on full-time RVing.

Hitting the road

Knowing your reason

I cannot stress enough how important this is. When we hit the road, we quickly discovered that it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine and if we didn’t know our reason for choosing this lifestyle, it made the tough times even tougher.

The why was to spend more time together as a family with fewer distractions from things and activities.

Here’s our story of how we became a full-time R-Wing family.

This is not a holiday.

There is a difference between being on vacation and traveling full time. Your home is always with you, which means so are all the worries and chores that come with it. . . Plus when you move to a new location you don’t have the vacation budget to do all the fun and cool things. You have to be creative and find as many free things as you can!

Don’t get me wrong we still have a great time and lots of cool places to see. But being on the road doesn’t take away all the normal and difficult things that go along with life!

If you like what you’ve read so far, be sure to check out my book: Full-Time RVing with Kids – An Insider’s Guide to Life on the Road! I wrote this book to help others who want to go on the road with children. Many reviewers have told me that it’s just like sitting around a campfire talking about your experience of being on the road and being on the road.

How will you travel?

Knowing your reason

I cannot stress enough how important this is. When we hit the road, we quickly discovered that it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine and if we didn’t know our reason for choosing this lifestyle, it made the tough times even tougher.

The why was to spend more time together as a family with fewer distractions from things and activities.

Here’s our story of how we became a full-time R-Wing family.

Be prepared to plan

This lifestyle involves a lot of planning. It’s not like having a home you know you can go back to every night. Instead you need to make sure you have a campsite booked or somewhere in mind to stay overnight – every night!

It takes work and planning. Yes, it gets easier because you’ve been doing it for a while, but it’s always there.

Also be aware that there are campgrounds such as national parks that book up 6-12 months in advance. Yes, you read that right. If you dream of staying in Yellowstone National Park (which we highly recommend), you’ll need to plan ahead and book your spot in advance either on a first-come, first-served basis or Take the opportunity to cancel. .

Summer:

A lot of people travel in the summer when the kids are out of school which means places get booked up and they book up early (like again 6-12 months). So keep this in mind when considering a summer trip.

We’ve found that weekdays tend to be more open, but weekends are much harder to get last-minute campsites. You can usually find one but they will probably be too expensive or not exactly what you are looking for.

Winter:

This was surprising to me (being from Wisconsin I just assumed most places down south stayed warm all winter! It’s not.) If you swim warm all year round with shorts and tank tops. If you’re looking for the weather, your options are pretty limited.

To get this kind of weather, you usually have to be south of Orlando, in Arizona or Mexico. . . Not saying you can’t live further north, but just know that the further north you get the colder the weather is going to be.

That being the case, Florida and Arizona are full of RVers in the winter. Both families and retirees. This means that planning ahead is usually a necessity. If you want to get the places you are looking for.

If the Florida Keys are high on your list (which we also recommend), know that you’ll want to book these state park campgrounds 11 months out. Yes, there are private RV parks that you can book closer to the date, but they are 3 times the price. There are a few trail collections (subscription add-ons to a thousand trails) parks so that’s another option, but just know that some advance planning will be involved.

Now all that being said, we are not planners and rarely ever plan more than a few months ahead. What we’ve done is figure out how we need to do this planning to make it work. And sometimes we didn’t get to choose the exact site or campground we wanted.

With a Thousand Trails membership we are able to book sites online for up to 90 days (this number varies with membership) and then we can cancel them. So if we’re not 100% sure what we’re doing we can book a set of dates and then go and change them or cancel them if we change our plans.

We also monitor the booking system at places and sometimes check daily to see if anything opens up. He has worked to get us to National Parks at the last minute when people have canceled reservations.

You have to be comfortable with uncertainty and also be comfortable with the fact that you may end up boondocking somewhere for a few days if nothing is available. It’s up to you how you feel about it.

Expectations

We highly recommend setting realistic expectations. If you think living in a small space with your family 24/7 isn’t difficult at times, you’re not preparing yourself. This lifestyle has its challenges. If you accept and expect it, you’ll be more prepared when it happens.

 

Buying an RV

This is a fun part of the journey, but also a stressful one! It’s not just your weekend getaway, it’s where you’re going to live. This makes choosing the right RV camper a little more stressful.

Everything from camper vans to large fifth wheels is available! It can be difficult to choose.

Another option is to rent an RV first. To help you decide what you like. We have a post here on RV rental tips and one on tips for planning an RV trip.

We put a lot of thought into our purchases (we’ve owned 5 RVs since hitting the road in 2014) and for the most part were happy with what we chose each time. Really think about where everything you want/need to bring with you will go. Do you have a lot of camping gear, kayaks, paddle boards, indoor toys, kitchen products?

Where will everyone sleep – will it work? What about a dog bed – is there room on the floor for it? Do all the clothes have a place to go? Is there a desk area or space for a computer?

Thinking about the things we knew we wanted and needed room for was helpful in narrowing our decision.

The big question is always what size RV you should get.

We’ve written a post to help you find out: Everything You Need to Know to Pick a Great Family RV.

We also received our last 2 rigs from Camping World and were really happy with the trade and the entire purchase process!

Financing

An RV loan can either be the same as a car loan or you can go the route of getting a longer term loan like a mortgage in the 15-20 year range, but (and this is a big but) know that this There are limits. . with these loans.

For example, to get a long-term loan, your RV must be less than 8 years old. Or if you’re going to get a long-term loan, you may need to put down 20% versus the typical 10% or less.

There are many factors that come into play, and as we learned, if you’re a new entrepreneur and don’t have a home, things can get even more interesting.

Our recommendation is to talk to a bank or loan company first and get an idea of ​​what they do for an RV. Finally, if you buy from a dealer, it may make sense to go through their finance department, but it’s always good to do your homework beforehand so you know what the typical rate is.

Solar

If you can, add solar to your rig ASAP! This will give you the opportunity to go out and boondock (camp without hookups). We’ve been boondocking in so many amazing places.

Our current solar setup was installed by Future Solutions in Indiana and they did an amazing job!

Our Keystone Montana High Country 335BH came pre-wired for solar, saving a lot of time and money throughout the solar installation process.

We currently have:

• Precision Circuits Battery Guard
• Magnum MS2000 Inverter
• Victron MPPT Solar Controller
• Magnum remote
• 2 x 300 watt panels
• 4 Battleburn GC2 lithium batteries

Make it your own

Moving into an RV (which is now your tiny home on wheels) you still want to make it yours! We had a lot of fun doing this with every rig we had. With our first rig we took out the cabinets and sink and added bunks and shelves. We also tore out all the old fashioned decorations and made curtains to hang.

Plus we painted the entire RV. Nothing really different here. Craig just primed the walls and we painted them with regular paint. Nothing special.

We were very happy with everything we did and really enjoyed living in it, but when it came time to sell we had to repaint everything in a neutral color. I guess we didn’t have to, but most people shopping for an RV are looking for more factory style. Just something to keep in mind.

1st RV Remodel: RV Remodel: How to Fit 6 People and 2 Large Dogs in a Class A RV

2nd RV – We did some customizations but not much as we didn’t keep it long as it had some mechanical issues and it just didn’t suit us. It was a 23ft Class C and we didn’t tow the car. But when we set out to explore, we found it convenient to have a car and leave our “home” at the campground.

With our 3rd RV (21ft travel trailer) and a much smaller one – we have found that it needs to be more customized so that we have the things we need. Most RVs off the factory floor are built for weekend trips where you might have a backpack or suitcase. When it’s something you’re going to live in, you’ll want to update it to make it livable!

Some things we have done with it:

• Converted our shower into a closet for clothes (we used campground showers).
• Added an inverter and got a solar panel suitcase.
• Keep a spice rack for our spices and oils (this was more helpful than I can say!).
• Found a better location for the TV.
• Set up storage areas and art stations for the kids.

4th RV: We did mostly cosmetic changes to make it what we wanted. We did it all in 2 weeks for under $2000.

5th RV: We have also done mostly cosmetic changes to this one to make it a tiny home.

Naming it

Have some fun here and name your house on wheels. We haven’t done it yet and just call ours The Rig, but I know other people have come up with some really cool and unique names! We’d love to hear from you so send us a message!

Buying a vehicle to tow or tow a vehicle with

Quite late in the game we learned that there are only a few vehicles that can be pulled 4 down behind a motorhome. Wait you can’t take a minivan?! Cheap! I think there are some older models you can do, but it’s a pretty short list.

Here is a great list for determining which vehicles can be dinghy towed – 4 below.

If you’re buying a truck to tow your 5th wheel or trailer, just remember that it’s also the vehicle you’ll be taking to attractions, the grocery store, parking structures, etc. Sometimes that’s just what you have to do.

Also be aware of the weight and how much your trailer/5th wheel will weigh with everything on it. Here’s a post we wrote for Winnebago that talks more about: Choosing a Family-Friendly Vehicle for a Travel Trailer

Learn more about tow trucks.

Living in an RV

Simplify

Over the years we’ve learned that the less stuff we have, the more space we have, and that’s a good thing. Plus almost everything we got rid of we didn’t want back and don’t remember.

The same goes for outdoor toys – a big grill, a ton of lawn chairs, yard decorations, things like that. Believe me, sorting them out and taking them down really gets old really fast.

That being said we are really happy when it’s cold and our friends have a clam tent and we borrow our parents from time to time to grill :).

Here are some tips on how we make our lives easier: Simple. And check out these tips on living small!

Kitchen accessories

It’s all about downsizing. Unfortunately, many major kitchen appliances may not be working. Instead we focused on things we were going to use day to day. If we didn’t use it in a month, it was gone.

Here are our recommended kitchen accessories.

Clothes

I can’t believe how many clothes I use in my old house. I had 2 closets full! Now I have a box full and a few hangers and that’s it.

It’s really kind of crazy, but what I’ve learned is that I actually wear very little. Granted, I might need more if I had to go to work or dress up every day, but that’s one of the many benefits of this lifestyle. I can wear yoga pants or workout clothes every day!

For kids I have found that a box full of campground play clothes works great. I don’t care if these things go bad or go bad. Then I have a collection of 2 to 3 dresses that are nice clothes that she only wears when we go out to eat, museums, exploring, etc.

It’s really amazing how little clothing you really need to have. I should get my kids involved and we’ll wear the same clothes a couple of days in a row. why not?! Less laundry and easier to maintain!

Space

There just isn’t much. . . Unless you go out! Then your place is great!

But no matter how big your vein is on the inside, it’s not home. Space is tight. Especially if you have a large family.

You will adapt, but be prepared for some growing pains. Also if you go to a bathroom it can be a challenge. But luckily most campgrounds have a bathroom you can use.

We’ve also found that when we need space, we just go out or get in the car to a park, museum, etc. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to the space and realize you don’t really need that much. .

Groceries

Craig always laughs at me, but going to a new grocery store every few weeks has its challenges! This means I can’t always buy the same brand or know where the food I want is – because it’s a new store with a new layout.

But all that aside, it’s really like grocery shopping when you live in a house with storage space in the basement or garage for when there’s a great sale. Also, it’s about getting used to the space you have and then learning how much you can and can’t afford.

RV refrigerators are small, but one thing RVs do well is maximize space. Same thing with the RV fridge. You may be fitter than you usually think.

I know other people have gone the route of installing a residential fridge in their rig. So there are options.

Cooking

I can’t tell you how many people have said to me “What are you eating?!” The funny thing is that we eat the same things that we ate at home. We have appliances like a toaster, donut maker, instant pot, etc. in addition to a refrigerator, oven, and stove top.

The difference is that you probably won’t have a large kitchen to spread out. I will say that I also bake very little in the RV. There is not enough room for all this.

The fridge will probably be smaller (unless you get a residential fridge – which people do) and the overall storage for food is usually less, so your shopping style may change – in-box. No more storing closed items!

Internet

Oh the internet. . . I think it’s a good thing that we left our house soon after getting rid of cable and moved to watching Internet TV. Before our kids wanted to stream from their iPads. That’s because we don’t know what we’re missing because we don’t have reliable internet all the time to handle all that bandwidth!

If you need internet to run your business, don’t rely on campground Wi-Fi. Seriously this rarely works and when it does you usually have to be in the clubhouse or somewhere special for it to work.

We recommend getting your own hotspots instead. If you always need a connection and don’t want to stress about driving to a location (hello Starbucks), you’ll want to get the Verizon and AT&T plans. Plus a booster. . .

I’d say we’ve made it work (running multiple online businesses) with just one Verizon hotspot, but there are campgrounds and places where it was a total nightmare and a booster or AT&T would have worked.

Here’s a post from the amazing Technomadia team (not saying you need them all – we don’t have them all – but it’s interesting to see what’s possible!).

Our Mobile Internet Setup – 14 years of being online

Pets

When we decided to RV full time, we knew we would be bringing our dogs with us. That was part of the reason we went with RVing because they could come with us. It has its challenges, but what you’ll find is that most RV parks are full of people with pets.

If you have an aggressive breed, you may have more problems. For the most part with labs, we haven’t had any problems. Just always make sure dogs are allowed.

Also note that there are times when an RV park may charge additional fees for keeping pets. Also make sure that any pet food you get for your dog can be bought anywhere or you can have it shipped. We use Pedigree – not the best quality – but it’s available at Walmarts across the US.

If your dog barks, you need to take care of it. You can’t leave a barking dog back at the campsite when you leave for the day. We used a citronella bark collar and it worked great.

We leave our dogs in our RV and here are a few things to help:

1 – A wireless video camera so we can check them (if we have internet)

2 – We always leave the window open and if it’s hot, the A/c on

3 – There is a note on our door with our phone number on it.

4 – If it’s really hot outside, we’ll check in at the front desk and tell them we have a pet and call if the power goes out. This is why we leave the window open. We never leave without the window open.

Our Favorite Dog Friendly Spots

We had to put both of our dogs down while on the road. When this happened they were both getting old and not doing well, so we had to make the tough decision to put them down. Both times we found a vet and made sure to find a place we could cremate them so we didn’t have to leave them behind. For us, this was the best solution to the situation.

It was scary and sad, but it was all possible. We had no idea if cremation would be an option. If it wasn’t for that, we would have gone somewhere else.

The cost of full-time RVing

There are many different ways to live this lifestyle. Some do it to save money, others do it because they want to get out and travel and why not choose RV life to save money. Because it was never about saving money.

We’ve heard you can live the full-time RV lifestyle for $2,000 – $3,000 per month. We come in around $7,000 – $8,000 more but if we really try, we can probably do about $4,000 – $5,000 a month.

Please note that we move a lot. If we choose to stay in places longer, things will cost less. Instead we usually move every 4 days. If your goal is to save money by living in an RV full time, this may be possible.

BIlls

I think we thought living in an RV would be a lot cheaper than living in a house. . . it can be. In our case we have an RV payment – it was $532 on our first RV then about $300 for the next few. Plus if we live in campgrounds that can be $600 – $800 a month, that’s where we’re getting close to what our mortgage was (minus property taxes).

If you don’t have an RV to pay for and if you only live on free membership campgrounds or free boondocking land and don’t move often (gas goes up), you can certainly do it for less.

In our case we found our bills for the RV, car, insurance, cell phones, internet, etc. to be around $1200. Then everything else – campgrounds, groceries, spending money, etc. We end up making between $4500 and $7000 a month.

What we’ve found is that there’s a big difference in how much money people spend in the full-time family RV community. Like a really big change. There are some that do it for thousands a month and some that are over $7000. It all depends on what style of full-time RVing you’re looking for.

Here are detailed articles on how we afford full-time travel. Also a detailed budget for a few months for our family. When we started our goal was $4000 per month but we were closer to $7000 – now as the kids are older it’s closer to $8000 or sometimes even more.

Campground

Campground prices range from $0 per night to $200 per night. It all depends on what you are looking for. If you buy a membership like Thousand Trails – you pay a one-time flat fee to buy the membership.

In our case we bought it used for $3000 then we pay $545 a year. We purchased our used membership here: Campground Membership Outlet.

Once that annual fee is paid, we can stay “for free” at campgrounds around the US. We have mixed feelings about them. Some are really good, others not so good. They are usually quite far from attractions and often times our Verizon hotspots don’t have coverage. . .

However they are perfect for meeting other full-time traveling families!

We like to stay in state and national parks that can cost anywhere from $25 – $60 a night and usually don’t have full hookups, but instead just electricity and maybe water.

Then there are private RV parks. There are times when we love these concrete centric RV parks with full hookups and a nice clean setup – and cable – kids love cable :).

Then there are BLM land and boondocking opportunities where you can stay for free but there is no hookup. You find most of the BLM land on the West Coast – not as much on the East Coast. Here’s a post we did about camping for free or close to it in the US.

This is a post on our top 15 favorite RV campsites in North America.

Memberships

There are a fair amount of RV membership sites out there. We belong to:

Full-Time Families – All about families who travel full-time in their RV. Lots of great resources and rallies! Click here to join Full Time Families!

Thousand Trails – As mentioned above. Great for cheap camping (once you buy a membership) and meeting other full-time traveling families. Call or email for more details (tell them we sent you):

Slade Howard

Membership Expert

A thousand trails

Passport America – Great discounts on campgrounds (usually for one to two nights, but sometimes longer).

Good Sam – We don’t really use this, but when you RV full time you have a good Sam. . . You can be the judge of that.

HarvestHost – The best chance to stay free at wineries and wineries!

Boondockers Welcome – A great way to find unique accommodations on people’s properties across the US!

Mutual Museum Membership – A great one for deals at science museums, natural history museums, children’s museums and more!

I know there is more out there but this is what we do for now.

Health insurance

If you work for a company, you probably have health insurance through them, so you’re good to go. If you don’t, you may need to get insurance elsewhere. We have gone the Marketplace/healthcare.gov – https://www.healthcare.gov route and it has worked great for us.

We also purchased a Teledoc plan, which I would highly recommend.

Emergency rooms are dotted across the country. Outside of the emergency room we are only covered in Wisconsin which means if something comes up we have to go back which means we need constant care. Or pay out of pocket. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

We have also heard of people who take out short-term insurance.

Here is a great post about health care options.

RV insurance

We insure our RV through State Farm – the same place we have our cars. And then we also have a policy that covers our belongings up to $30K.

RV Traveling

How to Find Campgrounds

It all depends on what kind of campgrounds you are looking for. If you want free sites, check out our post on how to camp for free in the US.

Recreation.gov is great for finding state campgrounds and Reserve America has many state and national campgrounds. Good Sam also has a directory.

And if you want a full on-video tour of the campground – how cool is that?! CampgroudViews.com is great for this.

Also note that there are many campgrounds that are starting to charge what we call the “Kid Tax.” Basically people over the age of 2, you pay an extra fee per night. It can be $2 to $5 a person! This can make a big difference when you have children.

Full Time Families is working on a service where they reach out to campgrounds and ask if you are a full time family member to waive the child tax. It’s coming soon so stay tuned!

Taking the right path

Let us know if you figure it out :). Seriously, it’s not always an easy answer. If you have a big rig you want to make sure you’re going the right way and not hitting any low bridges or going over any bridges you shouldn’t be (yes we there have gone). Then you want to get a truck map book. or RV/Truckers GPS systems.

Finding Diesel Gas Stations

It’s not always easy, but usually if you go to a truck stop like Flying J, you’re good. We’ve also heard that AllStays is a good app for finding major gas stations if you have a big rig.

The RV lifestyle

Socialization

There is a large full-time RV community, both with and without kids. If you want to socialize, go to a campground and walk around and talk to people. Seriously it’s that easy. RVers and campers are very social.

Then if you’re looking for it, you can continue to chat with people who might plan to travel with you for a while. This has happened to us many times.

Here we have a guest post on how to make friends on the road.

Club

If you don’t want to put in that much effort, another option is to join a club where you can connect with people online or through Facebook groups.

What we recommend is Full Time Families. This is a great resource for people traveling with children. Their Facebook group has over 10,000 members and is a great way to message if there are other families visiting the campground or in the area you are visiting.

We’ve also heard good things about Escapees RV Club and Escapers.

Rallies

Feeling lonely on the road? Head to a rally! You won’t feel lonely right away, but you may feel overwhelmed.

I’ve heard people say that attending their first rally was like drinking from a fire hose. So many people and so much chaos, but so much fun!

We again recommend the Full Time Families Rally or the Escapers Rally. Plus Full Time Families will run some random get-togethers throughout the year that will also work.

More of our posts on RV Living:

10 Things We’ve Learned From 365 Days of Living and Traveling in an RV

RV Living With Kids – What We’ve Learned After 2 Years

11 Things We’ve Learned After 3 Years of Full-Time RV Living

RV membership

There are tons of great memberships out there that have saved us hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year.

Museum

If you have children and love science centers, children’s museums, aquariums, and zoos, you may want to get a mutual museum membership. This pass has saved us a lot of money!

You can learn all about it here: Mutual Museum Membership

Passport USA

This is a great membership to get a really good discount on sites for a night or 2 – sometimes a week in places that are usually in really good places. We don’t use it every month but whenever we do we’re glad we have it. Check it out here: Passport America.

Full-time families

As I mentioned above this is a great group to be a part of. You can join their free Facebook group for free, but once you become a member, you get member benefits along with access to their members-only Facebook group. This group is mostly filled with people who are or have been on the road – not dreamers – so you know you’re going to get great feedback and information.

A thousand trails

We have mixed feelings about Thousand Trails Parks. There always seems to be something wrong with them – either the internet doesn’t work there, they’re not fully hooked or they’re in the middle of nowhere. . . But then they have an easy-to-use system for making online reservations and it’s usually better than other hotels.We sell our RV through State Farm